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Cheshire Sues State Over Prison Waste

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CHESHIRE, Conn. (AP) _ The town of Cheshire has filed a lawsuit against the state over the amount of waste flowing from three prisons.

The New Haven Register reports the lawsuit, which was filed last week, seeks to renegotiate the town’s host agreement with the Department of Correction.

Cheshire wants the state to chip in for up to 20 percent of a planned $31 million upgrade to its wastewater treatment plant.
Legislation that would have required the state to reopen the host agreement and negotiate failed in the state Senate, prompting the lawsuit, said Michael Milone, the town manager.

“We feel we’ve exhausted all of our other options,” Milone said. “We’re at a point where time is of the essence, and the amount of money we’re talking about in terms of the state’s share is considerable.”

The host agreement allows for 350,000 gallons of effluent each day from the prison complex on Route 10. Milone says the average in March was about 625,000 gallons.

About 2,000 inmates are house in the Cheshire Correctional Institution and the Manson Youth Institution. The Webster Correctional Institution was closed in 2010, but the department also runs the Maloney Center for Training and Staff Development at the prison complex.

The attorney general’s office said it is reviewing the complaint. A spokesman for the Department of Correction declined to comment.

The wastewater treatment plant was last upgraded in 1990. The project is supposed to start this fall and take more than two years to complete.